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Haditha Massacre Allegations (May 2006)

Editors, Electronic Iraq

Jun 2, 2006


INTRODUCTION

Initial reports about a November 19th, 2005 incident in Haditha, Iraq - now an alleged massacre - were not longer than a couple of lines and went like this:

"Fifteen Iraqis, eight insurgents and a U.S. Marine were killed when a road side bomb detonated next to a joint Iraqi-U.S. patrol northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. command said Sunday.

"Immediately after the explosion, insurgents attacked the patrol with small arms, sparking a fire fight in Haditha, 220 kilometers (140 miles) northwest of Baghdad, a statement said." (Associated Press)

November 19th was a Saturday and right in the middle of a three-day spate of violence that the New York Times called "one of the deadliest three day periods since the American invasion," with 155 Iraqis and 8 American and British troops reportedly killed that weekend.

Now a Time Magazine story, published in March of this year after a 10-week investigation, has altered the Haditha narrative dramatically.

"The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq," the Time article began. "On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. The Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like "T.J., you were a great friend. I'm going to miss seeing you around" on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.

"But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military initially reported," the article continues. "According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children. Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began."

This is still very much a developing story. eIraq will be tracking the developements here.